Headed out from Spokane at the crack of dawn with my buddy Glenn; the ride to Ft Spokane was pretty nerve racking for Glenn as we encountered rain, snow, sleet and grapple, not good weather conditions for towing a boat.

We arrived at Ft. Spokane and drove over the bridge to see the condition of the Arm. It is still frozen over with very slushy ice all the way to just past two rivers boat mooring area. We also checked the launch and found a 1-2 foot snow/ice berm blocking both lanes, either a lousy plowing job or it is left over from the falling of Roosevelt. So on to Seven Bays we went where the launch is just fine.

We were on the water by about 0730 and immediately headed across the river from the launch to a point and had 2 eyes on in the first 5 minutes, unfortunately we lost both at the boat with one going about 16 inches and the one I lost 22-23 inches. After another ten minutes without a bite and a run in with a guy who apparently thinks you can reserve an entire football field sized area of the river based on how long you have lived in the area, we headed up river to outhouse flats. It took hours but we caught 20 keeper size eyes from 15-19 inches. All were caught jigging in 35-45 FOW with a black head and an avocado grub working the best. We had to jig extremely slow and we were only lifting our jigs 6-8 inches off of the bottom. The current was moving from .2 to .4 mph most of the time which was almost an ideal speed for jigging. Overall the weather wasn't bad, a few sprinkles here and there until 1230 when it rained hard for a solid hour but then let up just as quick. The water temp was 36.1 and the air temp was close to the same. There were only a few small chunks of ice floating down the river but lots of wood, up to entire trees as a matter of fact.

The Arm can't thaw out fast enough, hopefully before the water lever drops much further.

Mark

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